Performance Management System

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Boulder County Public Health (BCPH) is a public organization that has five divisions with over 200 employees responsible for delivering numerous programs to the community, which protect and prevent individuals from harmful diseases (Boulder County, 2011). Their mission is: “Boulder County Public Health shall protect, promote, and enhance the health and well-being of all people and the environment in Boulder County (Boulder County, 2011, ¶ 1).” In an effort to standardize the employee evaluation system across all five divisions, the organization developed a standard performance management system in 2005. According to Aguinis, there are fourteen characteristics that form an ideal performance management system and Boulder County Public Health’s performance management system will be evaluated to see which of these characteristics their system has.

Characteristics of an Ideal Performance Management (PM) System

Although there are fourteen characteristics of an ideal PM system, they are not all likely to present in any one system. However, according to Aguinis (2009), systems that have more of these characteristics are usually more successful. After reviewing BCPH’s system, they only have three of the characteristics and have only some of the aspects of two other characteristics that Aguinis describes (2009). The characteristics that their PM system has are strategic congruence, thoroughness and inclusiveness. In addition, their system has some portions of practicality, meaningfulness and reliability. However, there are several of the fourteen characteristic that are missing and two of these are acceptability/fairness and standardization.

Boulder County Public Health’s PM System

Since Boulder County Public Health’s PM system...

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...gement systems and the ones that have more of the fourteen characteristics are more likely to be successful in furthering the organization’s objectives (Aguinis, 2009). According to Winkler (2007), organizations need to improve their employee appraisal system and are moving towards PM systems since a performance-management system is not about controlling individuals; rather it focuses on improving overall performance (Bowes, 2009). According to Bowes (2009), this ensures that employees are doing the right tasks and that the organization has effective support in place to assist individuals. Boulder County Public Health has started to move away from just conducting employee appraisals, which is a step in the right direction. However, there is still significant work that must be done to make their system effective and perceived as fair and equitable by all staff.

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